Cooking

[TikindiDragon]

I love cooking, lol. I like experimenting and trying out lots of new recipies, and looking them up online. Cooking is just fun. P:

I've got a whole bookshelf full of cookbooks and I sound like a 50s housewife right now don't I?

If you are then both I and my boyfriend are as well. We have an absolute mass of cookery books, and we're always picking up new ones. *shrugs* We cook most of our food from scratch these days.

 

We've some favourite recipies, of course, that are in regular circulation. Some from books, some that we've concocted and perfected through experimentation. And we like to try at least one 'new' recipie every couple of weeks (we do our shopping for fortnight stretches).

 

And I bake. I love baking. We don't every buy cakes and biscuits any more because I make 'em all. I also do us the bread rolls to go with soup when we have it. I don't bake *all* our bread, though. We go through a good couple of loaves a wekks and I'd end up spending an entire day baking every week to keep us going in bread

 

Edit: missing 'b'

Edited September 5, 2010 by TikindiDragon

[Ælex]

I can make a sandwich...

 

 

Heh, No I can't cook. I prefer paying others to do it for me.

[Kestra15]

Cooking is a chore, not a sport. Apparently I'm good at it, but what I'm really good at is making it cheap, quick and easy.

[War Pig Killer]

I can cook a little - I'm still learning! I've got good instincts apparently with a bit of a talent (says parents ) I just need more practice. We don't usually have ingredients.

[alaster]

my mom thought me to make lobsta

[Cavedragon49990]

Foood. Yumm.

But anyway, despite the fact that I'm not even in the double digits yet, I can cook a lot, like spaghetti, macaroni, and a ton of other stuff I can't think of.

 

P.S. Does anyone know of a baking thread? Because I wanna open one.

[dragon_mando]

I thought baking was part of cooking?

 

Cooking is the broad term, Baking is like a subcategory along with frying, raw prep, etc, as far as I know. Why couldn't baking work as a part of this one thread and keep things tidy?

 

edit: soullesshuman, does the sauce have to come up to a boil at any point? If it does, or if the flavour isn't too badly altered by boiling, simmering it down to thicken it or adding a tiny bit of corn starch might work. It will take some experimenting though

Edited September 5, 2010 by dragon_mando

[RheaZen]

 

*Weeps*

[Kestra15]

 

*Weeps*

As would basic English classes.

[Kaynight]

I enjoy cooking when I'm in the mood though sometimes after a long day microwave meals are a god-send I've been told my homemade Spaghetti bolognaise and Paste Bake tastes great though ^^

Edited September 8, 2010 by Kaynight

[TikindiDragon]

I enjoy cooking when I'm in the mood though sometimes after a long day microwave meals are a god-send I've been told my homemade Spaghetti bolognaise and Paste Bake tastes great though ^^

See there's a way to have both that god-send of a microwave meal *and* decently cooked food at the same time - make twice as much as you need occasionaly when you're making the meal. Then you just stick it into a tupperware container and keep it in the fridge or freezer. Then after a long day it only needs to go in the microwave! Ta da! Home cooked food, nice and hot, with minimal effort on the day you want to eat it!

 

We do that a lot, to be fair. Most recipies are 'serves 4' and there's only two of us. So we make the full recipie and keep the other half for later. Tis especialy useful with things like chilli, soup and hotpot.

[solaflar3]

Rice is so easy! Its the one recip I've memorized right....

1 cup rice

1 1/2 cups water

 

Wash rice, add water, boil until you see little "craters" or bubbles on the rice. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes without lifting the lid...

 

If you add a little bit of oxo powder or that powdered broth that comes with Mr.Noodle before you cover it tastes delicious.

Or put a sheet of nori on top of it after its done the 20min and cooling down...

Or, buy basmati rice - quicker to cook and tastes nicer. Add 1 cup of rice, 2 cups of water and boil for 8 minutes. Rinse with boiling water. Eat.

 

Easy pilau rice (PROPER pilau too - none that fake bright yellow stuff). 1 cup rice, 3 cups boiling water, dessert spoon of ghee or butter, half teaspoon of ginger, half teaspoon of cumin, good pinch of fennel seeds, 1 cinnamon stick broken in half, 4 cardonom pods, 4 cloves. Bang it in the oven for 45 minutes until all the liquid has been absorbed.

 

How do you guys make your smoothies? I just put strawberries, a banana and what ever other fruit we have in a blender and, well, blend it and drink it. It's pretty sour though so I add milk to my sister's

 

Same way, if it's sour I add a little honey.

 

@ soullesshuman

I'm very bad with sauces. I was trying to make a black garlic sauce for some fried eggplant. I can do the eggplant just fine, but the sauce is always watery, and if I don't add enough sauce the eggplants are plain. Is there any way to not do this?

 

Reduce it by simmering longer. Never made a black garlic sauce so no idea if it would be suitable, but could you use a roux?

 

@ Tiki

See there's a way to have both that god-send of a microwave meal *and* decently cooked food at the same time - make twice as much as you need occasionaly when you're making the meal. Then you just stick it into a tupperware container and keep it in the fridge or freezer. Then after a long day it only needs to go in the microwave! Ta da! Home cooked food, nice and hot, with minimal effort on the day you want to eat it!

 

That's what I do. I ALWAYS cook way too much so the left overs get frozen for another day.

[Kestra15]

I avoid microwave meals as they are rather unhealthy and always taste of plastic. Instead, tortellini is the way forward - boils in minutes, variety of flavours, reasonably healthy on the scale of instant meals, and with a bit of pesto and a few rasher of bacon/gammon/steak in the Foreman complement it nicely. Or add an egg and some grated cheese once you've drained the water. Or all of the above.

[Maladroit]

I've only started cooking in the past few years, after I had already graduated from college. I had avoided learning to cook for years because of too many mothers telling me that I needed to learn to cook for the family after I get married. I disliked the assumption that I, as the wife, would be the cook of the family. I'm surprised to find out, though, how much I do enjoy cooking. It beats cleaning up the dishes after dinner, which I can usually foist on to my younger sister who does not cook.

 

These days when I am home, I usually cook dinner to take the burden of preparing it off my mother. I recently began blogging about my attempts, putting in my changes, and noting what worked, what didn't, and what I would do differently next time. I hope to create my own personal cookbook with all this information one of these days.

 

I have a number of cookbooks but I'm afraid that I rarely use them. I prefer to search online for my recipes. For example, about 15 minutes ago, I just finished making steak sauce that had gotten good reviews from allrecipes.com. It was for the leftover steak dinner we had last night. Unfortunately, I find it too sweet for my taste since it called for 2 tbsp of jam (raspberry but I used boysenberry since I didn't have any raspberry), and 2 tbsp of brown sugar (I cut the amount in half).

 

I enjoy trying out new things. I will usually deviate from a recipe because 1) I don't have what it called for or 2) I thought whatever I add might enhance the flavor or 3) either someone is allergic or we don't like it.

 

I've had about equal number of successes and failures.

 

This past month, I started baking. Aside from the Apple Butter cookies (which my parents claimed were good), most of my attempts turned out well (especially the Butterscotch Apple Cake).

 

Tonight, I plan on trying a kale recipe I've found (we've never eaten kale before), and Sweet and Crispy Chicken (if my mother didn't use up all the ginger last night: http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/dakkangjung) to be served with rice and side dishes.

 

 

[Kamak]

I spent the last day making white chili (no, I didn't slave over a stove since last night, I just left it to cook in a crock pot). It turned out a bit milder than usual, but nothing a little bit of tabasco, salt, and cayenne pepper couldn't help (mom and dad preferred it milder too, so I just had to doctor my bowl).

 

I love White Chili, and I'm glad I was able to cook it despite having my time for cooking limited by school... I may have to try making this a weekly thing...

 

-K-

[cherrycrazybanana]

Cooking is the best! i really started coking because my parents got home late from work and if i didnt i would be hungry (because i wasnt old enough to drive yet and my sis absolutely hates cooking) but now i love it! i especially cook during the holidays, i pump out a TON of sweets! its crazy and so much fun! so now i have been trying new recipes and making a different things! in fact i need to find i new recipe right now

[EternalSpring]

I've currently got noodles cooking, sauce burning, and almost ready to eat! It's my own special recipe... I made the noodles myself. 8D It's delicious - in my mind. Very, very Chinese-style.

[lryl]

I've got gnocchi currently in the freezer (the recipe I found suggested prepping the day before and freezing), perhaps a bit over ambitious for a first attempt at real cooking. Definitely need to invest in a potato ricer at some point if I try making them again, hand mashing just isn't good enough, my dough was all lumpy. And I think I'm a bit heavy handed but.... I guess I'll find out tomorrow how they turned out. Fingers crossed for them to be edible

[NixAyum]

Mmmm random question: How does chicken fare when sauteed(? in a skillet?) with an apple tea-juice blend?

 

I was cooking tea (probably a bad way to put it) this morning when I realized I had nothing to enhance some chicken I have. And as I'm severely lacking in spices or like, anything a good cook would have, the idea popped up to simmer the chicken in the juice and see what it did.

 

I have extra chicken and backup meals, so I wouldn't have minded if it ruined it, but then I remembered "hey, I have a forum of people that like cooking, lemme just ask them. :B"

[dragon_mando]

That could be really tasty, actually (sorry I didn't see this at the time of relevance).

 

In other news, I made soup this morning out of some leftovers. T'is yummeh. Scrambled egg bits, onion, hashbrowns, and bell pepper with lots of garlic salt, ginger, and cinnamon and pepper. Yum.

[.Aeternitas]

In other news, I made soup this morning out of some leftovers. T'is yummeh. Scrambled egg bits, onion, hashbrowns, and bell pepper with lots of garlic salt, ginger, and cinnamon and pepper. Yum.

Delish.

 

I can't cook that well. I burned myself making french toast at school the other day. Dx

[dragon_mando]

lol it takes practice--and lots of it. I've been cooking since I was 7 so I have practice to spare >_>

 

Sorry about getting burned though, that's not fun

[NixAyum]

French Toast is yummeh!

 

I miss the FT from home. I don't buy loaf bread or eggs and I has no powdered sugar so I cannot has. :<

 

However, I'm making mutha ****ing cheesy chicken roll ups this week, so I think I'll be good. I love my mutha ****ing roll ups.

Edited October 11, 2010 by NixAyum

[TikindiDragon]

Got a home-made soup and fresh baked bread for dinner tonight. The house is smelling gorgeous already.

 

It's amazing, really, how much food you can get out of so few ingredients if you make a soup. Four potatoes, a pepper, couple of bits of celery and half a cup of itty-bitty pasta shells = dinner for four people! Amazing when you think about it, because cooked seperately it would be nowhere near enough food.

[Kamak]

I finally got to make homemade bread again yesterday...

 

I love focaccia bread... :B

 

-K-